Modern Family
by Timballisto
Summary: Briar, Daja, Tris, and Sandry all had... unique experiences that lead them to 12 Discipline Ct, Summersea, MA. Including, but not limited to; Home Depot managers, lawyers in Armani suits, anti-depressants, and crawfish.
1. Chapter 1: Briar

**Briar.**

* * *

Briar didn't know how he thought he'd get away with it.

And that was his problem, wasn't it? Thinking? Not thinking had gotten him kicked around the foster system and onto the streets where he'd been sucked into the gang wars of LA. In his case, he'd joined the Thief Guild, known in particular for their double X tattoos Not thinking had prompted him to throw a cherry bomb at a cop car, to jack a jewelry store with a few of his buddies, to get thrown in a juvenile detention at the tender age of twelve.

Not thinking is what was forcing him to run down the street like a madman, a small tree tucked under his arm... with three clerks and an angry manager on his heels.

"Stop, thief!" one of the fatter clerks shouted, his voice wheezy and laboured. "Stop him!" the manager added, distinguished by the bright orange vest; his symbol of authority at the local Home Depot. Briar merely tugged his green hoodie higher to hide his face from the various passerby as he dashed down the sidewalk, shoving the people he couldn't move around out of his way.

Briar counted himself lucky that Summersea was such a small, rural, Massachusetts community that it could only support a few overweight mall cops and a single sherrif- nothing like the riot police or the dispatch cops that had wrestled him to the ground at his second arrest. He scoffed, flipping the bird at group that still dogged his heels, his Chucks pounding the ground as he dashed into the gated community of Winding Circle. He cringed slightly at he racket, the noise echoing off of the expansive gardens in front of the cottages, disturbing the idyllic peace that he found he enjoyed after all of his time in the city; usually the only noise that really penetrated the sleepy little suburb was the tall clock tower that rose out of the community center that had been nicknamed the Hub by the residents.

He chanced a look back, his eyes widening at the gap that had closed between them. They were only twenty feet behind now, and gaining. Gulping, Briar put on another burst of speed, turning off of Temple Road and onto Discipline Court, charging for the small cottage at the far end of the cul-de-sac.

"Briar?"

Briar's eyes widened; Sandry, one of the other fosters that lived in the house, stood by the gate, partially blocking his way in.

"Move!" He yelled, barely waiting for Sandry to yelp and jump out of the way before running through, into the relative safety of Discipline Cottage. He said relative, because he really wasn't sure if his foster parents would take up for him this time. Especially-

"Rosethorn!" the manager called, coming to a stop before the picketed fence. His face was bright red and his voice breathy. "Where is she? I know she put you up to stealing that shakken, boy, and when I get my hands on you-"

"You'll what?" Sandry demanded, her eyes hard as she stepped before the gate, shutting it firmly with a loud _click. _"This is private property- a private community, thank you-"

"Show some respect, girl!" the manager barked. "Children, these days, thinking they can _talk back _to their elders and _stealing-"_

"Oh shut up, Crane." Brair felt a shiver go down his spine as he felt the warm hand of Rosethorn come down _hard_ on his shoulder. "You're barely forty- you can't be going around sniping at people for being younger than you."

"Hmph." The man named Crane sniffed, looking down his long nose at the group. "I don't snipe at young people, I abhor hooligans. Troublemakers. _Thieves._"

"Briar?" Briar heard the soft voice of his other foster parent, Lark.

He groaned, already feeling the tickling of guilt in his chest at her disappointed voice. "I just took a little tree." He muttered, carefully extracting the brittle branches from his sweatshirt where they had clung to the fabric. "It was in the Home Depot garden center. It was dying!" Briar exclaimed, looking up at Rosethorn for support.

"That doesn't give you the right to take it!" Crane frothed. "You're very lucky I didn't call the police young man-"

"Crane, what on earth was a shakkan doing in a Home Depot?" Rosethorn barked, snatching the tree away from Briar's slackened fingers, carefully inspecting the little plant. The small pine needles were turning brown, slowly degrading from a healthy green to a dull brown.

"Shakkan?" Sandry asked, curious.

"A rather finicky type of bonsai that's become quite popular. They're almost impossible to care for and are worth thousands to the right buyer." Crane answered curtly. "Now, if you'll just give me back my-"

"Hell no!" Briar cut in, ignoring Lark's soft reproof for his language. "They're killing it, Rosethorn!" he pleaded, ignoring the astonished looks of his housemates; Sandry by the gate and Daja and Tris in the doorway to the rest of the house. They were a little too used to his mean, foul-mouthed street talk. Not so much the impassioned, tree-hugger he was portraying.

Not that _he_ hugged trees, he just had an appreciation for gardening.

Rosethorn sighed, sharing a long look with Lark before turning back to Crane. "I'll give you some of my tomato seeds."

Crane sniffed. "It's not he 16th century Rosethorn. I can grow tomatoes, buy them at the local market; greenhouses aren't exactly that special."

"You better appreciate this, boy." Rosethorn muttered to Briar under her breath. "I mean," she said, louder. "that you can have some of my _unique _tomato seeds. The ones I bred to be-"

"High-yielding and resistant to disease?" Crane's voice had a note of excitement in it, though he kept his face passive. "You're serious? You'll let me have a look at the project you nearly were awarded the Nobel prize for?"

Rosethorn snorted, waving her hand dismissively. "Whatever. Do we have a deal?"

Crane drew himself to his full height before nodding magnanimously. "We have an accord."

With that, he gathered the edges of his orange vest as if it was a voluminous robe and swept away, his cronies behind him.

"Drama Queen." Briar heard Rosethorn mutter beneath her breath, and he grinned.

* * *

Crane works at Home Depot! omgosh.


	2. Chapter 2: Tris

**Tris.**

* * *

There was something to be said about a girl who'd been through twenty different foster homes in four years, not even including the shuffling her own family had done before she'd entered the system. An unwanted child, and unlovable child. A bookworm, social retardation, a psychological mess with plenty of abandonment issues. Rumored to be schizophrenic, on medication for hearing voices...

Trisana Chandler scowled into her textbook as her history teacher droned on about the Renaissance, hunching her shoulders against the snickers and snide remarks of the rest of her peers. Despite it's shining reputation as a boarding school of culture, Tris had found that _Cercle Brisé _was no better than any public or private school she'd ever attended. The students were nice enough... until the rumors about her started to spread about her being a foster kid and how she had been removed from her family because she killed her mother, or because she was on drugs.

She pushed her glasses higher on her nose, adding an extra twist to her scowl as a giggling cheerleader and her posse of drooling football players walked by. One _accidently _knocked her books to the ground, sending her homework and papers flying everywhere, to be tread on gleefully by the people passing through the hall. Ignoring the laughter of her classmates, Tris sagged back against a slate grey locker, waiting for the hallway to empty before she attempted to retrieve anything. Knowing them, they'd shove her over and make her late anyway; why not be late on her own terms, for once?

"Trisana Chandler?"

Tris blinked, looking up from her ripped Calculus homework at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. "Yeah?"

A tall, pale man stood in the middle of the hallway, decked out in what looked like an extremely expensive Armani suit. His hair and beard were impeccable and he looked like he wouldn't be out of place in one of her father's boardrooms. He also didn't have a visitors pass.

"Stay back." Tris warned, narrowing her eyes. "I have mace."

The man chuckled, raising his hands. "Heavens, girl." he had a distinct Oxford accent. "I'm not here to abduct you- well, abduct you illegally." He fished around in his pocket before producing a card, which he handed to a still suspicious Tris.

"Mr. Niklaren Goldeye of Goldeye Law Firm." Tris read aloud. "My father's lawyer." She snorted, dropping the card on the floor dismissively. "Did he finally write me out of the will? Am I officially a ward of the state?"

"Well, not exactly." Mr. Goldeye smiled. "Your father didn't quite think through his contract with us- he paid for us to represent his family for life. A foolish display of wealth, in my opinion, because it allowed my firm to become your social lawyers, in a way."

"Meaning..." Tris lead on, not quite liking where this was leading.

"Pack your bags, Ms. Chandler, we are going on, as they say, a road trip."

* * *

Can't you totally imagine Niko as some big shot lawyer? I saw him in an Armani suit with a british accent and couldn't help myself.


	3. Chapter 3: Sandry

**Sandry.**

* * *

_She was in the dark. She didn't know what to do because she was _in. the. dark.

_The blackness rose up like black ooze, sliding like a second skin over her ankles and up her calves. It made her skin prickle with fear and chill before it climbed upwards. Over her thighs, over her stomach... up her ribs until it cradled her neck. It slid slowly, almost imperceptible over her lips, twisting around her nose to slowly choke her air off. Then she'd suffocate, suffocation by the darkness. Death by fear._

_It climbed over her eyes and... she screamed._

"...it's definitely PTSD." a soft voice murmured near her ear. Sandry's small nose twitched as it acclimated itself to the smells she quickly identified as a hospital. She blinked, opening blue eyes. Or the only clinic in the small town of Summersea, home to 1,243 souls, the biggest town in Emelan County, Massachusetts. "As well as a healthy dose of depression, I'd say."

Sandry turned to look from her bed towards the voices, meeting the warm eyes of her uncle and docter as she did so. "Uncle." she said, as warmly as she could manage.

"Sandraline." he smiled, leaving the docter in a stride, coming over to sit at her bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?" she asked, frowning. She couldn't quite remember...

"The power went off, my dear." her uncle explained softly. "You had an... episode."

Sandry felt her cheeks color with shame. Oh, she remembered now.

"Why didn't you tell me?" her uncle asked softly, and Sandry shook her head. But she knew exactly why.

No one wants to tell their uncle that their parents, against the warnings of older, more experienced travelers, and gone straight into the center of an African civil war. They had expected, as always, to pay their way through. Daddy had been a CEO worth billions, after all. There hadn't been a time yet when money hadn't gotten her families way, no time when the seas hadn't parted for Mattin or Amiliane Toren. Except of course, when they had gotten caught up in the genocide that ensued when the country broke into violence.

Sandry closed her eyes briefly. Two shots to the back of the head, execution style, the autopsy report had said. They hadn't suffered.

But she had.

She remembered the laughing faces of the rebels, happy as they took their freedom for the oppressive warlord that ruled their country with and iron fist, happy to harm the Americans who gave him funds in order to enjoy luxuries that they had never even heard of. They took her to a closet and locked her in, leaving her there to rot. It had been mere luck that the UN had stumbled across her parents corpses and ID them; and knew to look for a little girl.

"It's nothing." she said, opening her eyes finally. "Really, just a... flashback. That's all."

"Well..." Uncle frowned, staring down at the pale face of his niece. "I doubt all this sitting indoors is helping, either. After I sign for your prescription, I'm sending you to Discipline."

"I'm... in trouble?" Sandry asked, confused and slightly hurt.

"No, Sandraline." Uncle grinned. "Rather the opposite, I think. I'm acquainted with the place vaguely, but think of it as more of a vacation getaway. This place," he gestured to the Clinic. "and the Citadel are no places for lonely girls."

Sandry rolled her eyes. "It's the town hall, Uncle, not a Citadel. Honestly, you make yourself sound like the King of Emelan- we _are_ part of a democracy you know."

"Hmm, King? I'm rather partial to Duke, myself." he looked thoughtful. "Duke Vedris IV... I like the sound of that."

Sandry rolled here eyes, feeling her spirits lift a little, even as her Uncle filled out the forms for enough anti-depressants to make her buoyant for days.

Perhaps Discipline wouldn't be so bad.


	4. Chapter 4: Daja

**Daja.**

* * *

For as long as she could remember, Daja had worked the nets with her family. They would work all day, sweat pouring down bodies of various shades of velvet, singing at the top of their lungs while they hauled in the crawfish that fueled their little family business. Voices thick with accents- Jamaican, Cuban, Southern, Texan, Columbian- would rise in a crescendo at the docks as the Fifth Ship Kisubo made was proud to be part of something bigger, something better than herself.

Kisubo Fishing Co. had been working out of New Orleans since the French owned the Louisiana Purchase. "We were the only all negro company, you know." her grandfather would remark proudly from his spot of honor on their front porch, his pipe looking like the steamers that used to power up and down the Mississippi back when he was a boy. "the French didn't complain, and neither did the Americans when they had a taste of our craw." He cackled, his skin stretching like leather. "Us Kisubo, we stick together, hmm?"

Yes. Kisubo stuck together.

"You _what!"_

Daja cringed in her seat outside Judge Trey Dare's office, trying not to make eye contact with any of the other people who were waiting in line for a meeting with the Honorable Judge.

"It's bad luck, mon." she could hear the accent voice of Indigwe, the CEO of Kisubo Fishing Co. and her uncle. "Our family keeps to the old ways- bad luck clings to those who survive shipwrecks. It's contagious, like a plague. Disaster will strike if we keep her."

"Of all the most useless, inane, _asinine, _drivel I have _ever _had to stomach-"

"Excuse me, Mr. Goldeye, but you will keep your temper in my office, do you understand?"

There was a pregnant pause before she could hear the man murmur; "I understand."

"The papers?" her uncle sounded inpatient. "I would like to get back to my own family."

There was the faint scratching of pen against paper before she could hear them being shuffled. "That will be all, gentlemen." the Judge murmured. "Mr. Kisubo, you may go."

Daja only had a few seconds before her uncle burst out of the office, his thick work boots thumping against the expensive floors of the hallway. He kept his gaze fixed forward, and did not turn his head to acknowledge Daja in any way. Soon, his form turned a corner and disappeared from her sight. From her life.

Her throat burned, suddenly, and she could feel a lump form as she fought to keep herself composed. _Trangshi, _she thought, _I'm trangshi. _Outcast, Lost One.

"Daja?"

Daja turned. This, she realized, must be the man that had nearly taken the hide out of her uncle. "Yes?"

"My name is Niklaren Goldeye, I'm your attorney." he reached out and shook her hand firmly, like an adult. "If you would follow me?"

Daja nodded, and gestured for him to lead the way.

He went.

She followed.


End file.
